Channel Title: YIVO Institute for Jewish Research Channel Description: The YIVO Institute was founded in Berlin, Warsaw, and Vilnius (Vilna) in 1925 as the Yiddish Scientific Institute with the support of leading intellectuals and scholars. Its mission was to document, study and preserve Jewish life in all its forms. World War II forced YIVO to relocate from Vilnius to New York City, where it has continued its mission since 1940. <video> Judith Liskin-Gasparro, YIVO-Bard Uriel Weinreich Summer Program Graduate Description: Judith talks about her experience in the YIVO-Bard Uriel Weinreich Summer Program in Yiddish Language, Literature, and Culture and being inspired to contribute to Yiddish language learning. The YIVO-Bard Uriel Weinreich Summer Program in Yiddish Language, Literature, and Culture, established in 1968, is the oldest intensive Yiddish summer program in the world. YIVO's six-week intensive program will take place both in person and online this summer. The Summer Program offers peerless instruction in the Yiddish language and an in-depth exploration of the literature and culture of East European Jewry and its diaspora communities. The program features daily Yiddish language study from beginner to advanced levels, history and culture seminars, shmues (conversation) classes, a theater workshop, lectures by visiting scholars, a Yiddish song workshop, and more. The Weinreich Program treats Yiddish as a living language and emphasizes spoken Yiddish. Whether on Zoom or in person, we hope you will join us this summer! Apply for the 2025 Summer Program: https://summerprogram.yivo.org </video> <video> Proof of Identity Description: Co-sponsored by POLIN: Museum of the History of Polish Jews What does it mean to be a Polish Jew today? How do Polish Jews define their own identity at different stages of life? How do they define their identity when they’re religious or atheist? Writer, reporter and photographer Mikołaj Grynberg seeks answers to these and many more questions in his directorial debut, Proof of Identity. The interviewees of this poignant documentary represent a variety of Jews residing in Poland today. By interviewing the generation that has had no direct contact with the Holocaust survivors in their families, this film encourages viewers to ponder how Holocaust memory has evolved in Poland. The conversations reveal a vast array of attitudes and experiences, as the protagonists come from both big cities and the Polish province. The audience learns not only about each interviewee's family history, but also about their modern-day encounter with antisemitism in Poland. Join YIVO for a post-screening discussion of the US premiere of the POLIN Museum’s new documentary, with Grynberg, Columbia University Film Professor Annette Insdorf, and Head of the Exhibition Department at the POLIN Museum Joanna Fikus. The GER in NYC project was co-financed by the Minister of Culture and National Heritage under the Inspiring Culture programme. This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council. About the Participants Mikołaj Grynberg is a photographer, author, and trained psychologist. He has published three collections: Survivors of the 20th Century, I Accuse Auschwitz, and The Book of Exodus. I’d Like to Say Sorry, but There’s No One to Say Sorry To, his first work of fiction, was a finalist for the Nike, Poland’s top literary prize. He lives in Poland. Annette Insdorf is Professor of Film at Columbia University's School of the Arts, and Moderator of the popular "Reel Pieces" series at the 92nd Street Y, where she has interviewed 300 film celebrities. She is the author of the landmark study, Indelible Shadows: Film and the Holocaust (with a foreword by Elie Wiesel); Double Lives, Second Chances: The Cinema of Krzysztof Kieslowski; Francois Truffaut, a study of the French director's work; Philip Kaufman, and Intimations: The Cinema of Wojciech Has. Her latest book is Cinematic Overtures: How to Read Opening Scenes, currently in its fourth printing. Joanna Fikus is a graduate of the Institute of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Warsaw. She has been affiliated with the Museum of the History of Polish Jews POLIN since 2005, where she served as the coordinator of the core exhibition planning team. Since 2017, she has been the Head of the Exhibition Department at POLIN Museum. She is also the Deputy Chairwoman of the Board of the Jewish Historical Institute Association and the Chairwoman of its Grants Committee. Additionally, she is a member of the Founders Council of the Jewish Community Center Warsaw and a board member of the Association of European Jewish Museums. </video> <video> Representations of the Israeli Experience in Yiddish Prose, 1948–1967 Description: Israel's cultural space is frequently studied as if it were synonymous with the Hebrew-Israeli one. But within the borders of Israel, a fascinating culture was (and continues to be) created in many languages other than Hebrew. I Am Your Dust: Representations of the Israeli Experience in Yiddish Prose, 1948–1967 expands the boundaries of current studies of Israel's cultural history by presenting and analyzing Yiddish-Israeli prose written during the country's first two decades as an independent state. It offers a comprehensive study of that unique, and hitherto little understood, literature, a detailed historical documentation of the contexts of its production, and an eye-opening comparison of its themes to the more familiar outputs of Hebrew-Israeli prose. I Am Your Dust is the first socioliterary investigation of Yiddish-Israeli culture, and it explores how Yiddish-Israeli writers played a vital role in shaping the country's cultural identity in its early years. Join YIVO for a discussion of the newly published translation of this book with author Gali Drucker Bar-Am, led by Barbara Mann. Buy the book: https://yivo-institute.myshopify.com/products/i-am-your-dust-representations-of-the-israeli-experience-in-yiddish-prose-1948-1967 About the Speakers Gali Drucker Bar-Am is a scholar of modern Yiddish culture, studying its contribution to the formation of modern and post-World War II Jewish and Israeli (subjective and collective) identities. Her work closely interacts with wider studies of the modern experience, most notably studies of migration and exile cultures, of genocide and trauma, and of the emergence of modern ideologies and political movements and their influence on the collective ethos of place, space, tradition, and memory. She teaches the art of teaching literature at the Levinsky-Wingate Academic Center, Tel Aviv. Barbara E. Mann is the inaugural holder of the Stephen H. Hoffman Professorship in Modern Hebrew Language and Literature at Case Western Reserve University. She is the author of A Place in History: Modernism, Tel Aviv and the Creation of Jewish Urban Space (Stanford, 2006), Space and Place in Jewish Studies (Rutgers, 2012), and The Object of Jewish Literature: A Material History (Yale, 2022). </video> <video> A Very Jewish Christmas: Jewish Sitcom Characters Navigate December Description: Gertrude Berg, the woman widely credited with creating the first sit-com (The Goldbergs) appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1959 to talk about children wanting a Christmas tree for Hanukkah. This navigation of "The December Dilemma" has been a challenge for many American Jewish families, and as such has been plumbed for comedic effect throughout the history of television comedy. Join YIVO for a very Jewish Christmas celebration featuring a talk by Jennifer Caplan on Jewish television characters managing (or not) to make it through the holidays. A kosher Chinese food dinner will follow the presentation. This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council. About the Speaker Jennifer Caplan is a scholar of American religion and popular culture. She specializes in American Judaism and works extensively with film, television, internet media, humor, graphic novels, video games, board games, and other sites of pop culture engagement. Her book, Funny, You Don't Look Funny: Judaism and Humor from the Silent Generation to Millennials, was published by Wayne State University Press in 2023. </video> <video> Jewish Songs and Dances for Piano: Joel Engel's "A krants yidishe folks-nigunim" (1924) Description: Join YIVO for a YouTube premiere performance of Joel Engel’s A krants yidishe folks-nigunim (A Garland of Jewish Folk Tunes) (1924): a collection of Yiddish folksongs, dances, Hasidic nigunim, religious melodies, and more in arrangements for piano and four hand piano. Engel’s earlier Jewish Folksongs volumes I, II, and II (featured by YIVO in November 2020 and June 2021) were the first published classical compositions to feature Yiddish folksongs. His use of Yiddish folk music in his compositions proved to be influential and inspired the Society for Jewish Folk Music and the composers affiliated with it to create a vast oeuvre of similar work. This collection of 29 pieces is performed by Ryan MacEvoy McCullough and Sahun Sam Hong. Sheet music for this work can be found here: https://www.yivo.org/cimages/engel_a-krants-yidishe-folksnigunim_lo-res.pdf 00:00 The Lord will Build Galilee 01:22 From the Sabbath Grace after Meals 02:10 Elijah the Prophet 03:31 From the Passover Haggadah 05:44 Old Abraham 06:20 The Old Question 07:07 The Golden Peacock 07:57 Krymchak (Crimean-Jewish) Nign 08:33 Processional by J. Engel 09:17 The Youngest Daughter's Wedding 09:50 Hasidic 11:25 Lubavitch Ring Dance 12:10 Skotshne (Dance) 12:45 Freylekhs (Dance) 13:36 My Father's Nign 14:13 Seven Brothers 14:45 Sleep, Sleep, Sleep (Lullaby) 15:36 Skotshne (Dance) 16:46 Zhok (Dance) 17:27 To Your Health, Rabbi! 18:33 Nign of the Skver Hasidim 19:08 A Skillful Little Jewish Musician 19:50 Ring Dance of Zlatopolye 21:16 Processional by J. Engel 21:53 Freylekhs (Dance) 23:13 Itsye's Nign 24:06 A Fonye (Russian style) 26:03 Zhok (Dance) 27:13 Paupers' Dance by J. Engel from the play The Dybbuk 29:46 Outro The Sidney Krum Young Artists Concert Series is made possible by a generous gift from the Estate of Sidney Krum. This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council. About the Performers Pianist Ryan MacEvoy McCullough has developed a rich musical life as soloist, vocal and instrumental collaborator, composer, recording artist, and pedagogue. His growing discography features many world premiere recordings, including solo piano works of Milosz Magin (Acte Prealable), Andrew McPherson (Secrets of Antikythera, Innova), John Liberatore (Line Drawings, Albany), Nicholas Vines (Hipster Zombies from Mars, Navona), art song and solo piano music of John Harbison and James Primosch (Descent/Return, Albany), and art song by Sheila Silver (Beauty Intolerable, Albany). He has also appeared on PBS’s Great Performances (Now Hear This, “The Schubert Generation”) and NPR’s From the Top. He has appeared as a concerto soloist with major orchestras including with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Toronto Symphony Orchestra and has collaborated with such conductors as Gisele Ben-Dur, George Benjamin, Fabien Gabel, Leonid Grin, Anthony Parnther, Larry Rachleff, Mischa Santora, and Joshua Weilerstein. He lives in Kingston, NY, with his wife, soprano Lucy Fitz Gibbon. Pianist Sahun Sam Hong brings his colorful style and riveting energy to the solo, chamber, and concerto stage. Hong was the winner of the 2017 Vendome Prize at Verbier and a prizewinner of the Naumburg International Piano Competition and International Beethoven Competition Vienna. He was also the recipient of a 2021 American Pianists Award. On the roster of Young Steinway Artists since 2010, Hong has been featured as a guest soloist with orchestras including ORF-Vienna, Milwaukee, Indianapolis, Camerata New York, Fort Worth, Richardson, Racine, Waco, Galveston, and Brazos Valley Symphony. He has performed in prestigious venues such as Carnegie Hall’s Weill Hall, Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, the Vienna Musikverein, Église de Verbier, Merkin Hall, and the Kennedy Center. In addition to performing, Hong is a prolific arranger of chamber music and orchestral works, and his innovative transcriptions are performed all over the world. The chamber music collective, ensemble132, presents Hong’s creative transcriptions on annual tours throughout the United States. </video> <video> On Settler Colonialism: Ideology, Violence, and Justice Description: Since Hamas’s attack on Israel last October 7, the term “settler colonialism” has become central to public debate in the United States. A concept new to most Americans, but already established and influential in academic circles, settler colonialism is shaping the way many people think about the history of the United States, Israel and Palestine, and a host of political issues. By critiquing the most important writers, texts, and ideas in the field in his book On Settler Colonialism: Ideology, Violence, and Justice, Adam Kirsch shows how the concept emerged in the context of North American and Australian history and how it is being applied to Israel. He examines the sources of its appeal, which, he argues, are spiritual as much as political; how it works to delegitimize nations; and why it has the potential to turn indignation at past injustices into a source of new injustices today. Buy the book: https://yivo-institute.myshopify.com/products/on-settler-colonialism-ideology-violence-and-justice </video> <video> Autocracies in the 21st Century Description: We think we know what an autocratic state looks like: There is an all-powerful leader at the top who controls the police. The police threaten the people with violence. There are evil collaborators, and maybe some brave dissidents. But in the 21st century, that bears little resemblance to reality. Nowadays, autocracies are underpinned not by one dictator, but by sophisticated networks composed of kleptocratic financial structures, surveillance technologies, and professional propagandists, all of which operate across multiple regimes. Corrupt companies in one country do business with corrupt companies in another. The police in one country can arm and train the police in another, and propagandists share resources and themes, pounding home the same messages about the weakness of democracy. International condemnation and economic sanctions cannot move the autocrats. Even popular opposition movements, from Venezuela to Hong Kong to Moscow, don't stand a chance. These dictators aren't linked by a unifying ideology, like communism, but rather a common desire for power, wealth, and impunity. In this conversation, journalist Anne Applebaum and YIVO Executive Director Jonathan Brent discuss how autocracies have evolved in the 21st century. Buy the book: https://yivo-institute.myshopify.com/products/autocracy-inc-the-dictators-who-want-to-run-the-world This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council. About the Speakers After seventeen years as a columnist at The Washington Post, Anne Applebaum became a staff writer at The Atlantic in January 2020. She is the author of five critically acclaimed and award-winning books: Twilight of Democracy, Red Famine, Iron Curtain, Between East and West, and Gulag, winner of the Pulitzer Prize. She divides her time between Poland, where her husband is foreign minister, and Washington, D.C. Jonathan Brent is the Executive Director of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research in New York City. From 1991 to 2009 he was Editorial Director and Associate Director of Yale Press. He is the founder of the world acclaimed Annals of Communism series, which he established at Yale Press in 1991. Brent is the co-author of Stalin’s Last Crime: The Plot Against the Jewish Doctors, 1948-1953 (Harper-Collins, 2003) and Inside the Stalin Archives (Atlas Books, 2008). He is now working on a biography of the Soviet-Jewish writer Isaac Babel. Brent teaches history and literature at Bard College. </video> <video> Yiddish Language During the Holocaust Description: The Holocaust radically altered the way many East European Jews spoke Yiddish. Finding prewar language incapable of describing the imprisonment, death, and dehumanization of the Holocaust, prisoners added or reinvented thousands of Yiddish words and phrases to describe their new reality. These crass, witty, and sometimes beautiful Yiddish words – Khurbn Yiddish, or “Yiddish of the Holocaust” – puzzled and intrigued the East European Jews who were experiencing the metamorphosis of their own tongue in real time. Sensing that Khurbn Yiddish words harbored profound truths about what Jews endured during the Holocaust, some Yiddish speakers threw themselves into compiling dictionaries and glossaries to document and analyze these new words. Others incorporated Khurbn Yiddish into their poetry and prose. In Occupied Words: What the Holocaust Did to Yiddish, Hannah Pollin-Galay uses cultural history, philology, and literary interpretation to explore Khurbn Yiddish as a form of Holocaust memory and as a testament to the sensation of speech under genocidal conditions. Join YIVO for a discussion with Pollin-Galay about this new book, led by historian Samuel Kassow. Buy the book: https://yivo-institute.myshopify.com/products/occupied-words-what-the-holocaust-did-to-yiddish About the Speakers Hannah Pollin-Galay is Associate Professor in the Department of Literature at Tel Aviv University, where she is also head of the Jona Goldrich Institute for Yiddish Language, Literature and Culture. Pollin-Galay researches and teaches primarily in the fields of Yiddish literature and Holocaust studies, and all the ways that these two fields intersect. Her first book, Ecologies of Witnessing: Language, Place and Holocaust Testimony (Yale, 2018) asks how place and language shape Holocaust survivor testimony. Her second book, Occupied Words: What the Holocaust Did to Yiddish (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2024), explores the thousands of Yiddish words that were invented or reinvented during the Holocaust, and why they served as a potent means of testimony. Pollin-Galay has published articles in journals such as Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Jewish Quarterly Review and Jewish Social Studies, among others. For the 2024-2025 academic year, she is a Senior Scholar at the Fortunoff Archive for Video Testimony at Yale University and a Yiddish Book Center Translation Fellow, focusing on Yiddish ecopoems of the Holocaust. Samuel Kassow, the Charles H. Northam Professor of History at Trinity College, holds a Ph.D. from Princeton University. He has been a visiting professor at many institutions and was on the team of scholars that planned the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw. Among his various publications is Who will Write our History: Emanuel Ringelblum and the Secret Ghetto Archive (Indiana, 2007), which received the Orbis Prize of the AAASS, the Damals Prize in Germany for the best monograph of the year, and which was a finalist for a National Jewish Book Award. It has been translated into eight languages. He is on the team of scholars chosen by Yad Vashem to write a one-volume history of the Holocaust in Poland. </video> <video> Treasures from the YIVO Collections | Dolls from a Displaced Persons Camp Description: Every Friday throughout 2025, YIVO will release a new video highlighting a book, object, or artifact from its collections. These short videos each feature a YIVO staff member discussing an item and explaining its historical significance. This video features Director of the YIVO Archives Stefanie Halpern discussing dolls created in a displaced persons camp in Florence. </video> <video> Joseph Brodsky: Epitaph for a Centaur, Six Years Later Description: Join YIVO, Poetry in America, and COJECO for a panel discussion examining the life of Joseph Brodsky, the celebrated Russian-Jewish American writer and Nobel Laureate. The panel includes Poetry in America Director and Host Elisa New, YIVO Executive Director Jonathan Brent, literary executor of the Joseph Brodsky estate Ann Kjellberg, and founding director of the Russian American Cultural Center Regina Khidekel. </video> <video> Jewish Folk Medicine in Eastern Europe Description: Jews have been active participants in shaping the healing practices of the communities of Eastern Europe. Their approach largely combined the ideas of traditional Ashkenazi culture with the heritage of medieval and early modern medicine. Holy rabbis and faith healers, as well as Jewish barbers, innkeepers, and peddlers, all dispensed cures, purveyed folk remedies for different ailments, and gave hope to the sick and their families based on kabbalah, numerology, prayer, and magical Hebrew formulas. Nevertheless, as new sources of knowledge penetrated the traditional world, modern medical ideas gained widespread support. Jews became court physicians to the nobility, and when the universities were opened up to them, many also qualified as doctors. At every stage, medicine proved an important field for cross-cultural contacts. In A Frog Under the Tongue: Jewish Folk Medicine in Eastern Europe, Marek Tuszewicki studies manuscripts, printed publications, and memoirs to tease out therapeutic advice, recipes, magical incantations, kabbalistic methods, and practical techniques, together with the ethical considerations that such approaches entailed. His research fills a gap in the study of folk medicine in Eastern Europe, shedding light on little-known aspects of Ashkenazi culture, and on how the need to treat sickness brought Jews and their neighbors together. Join YIVO for a discussion with Tuszewicki about this book, led by cultural critic and playwright Rokhl Kafrissen. Buy the book: https://yivo-institute.myshopify.com/products/a-frog-under-the-tongue-jewish-folk-medicine-in-eastern-europe This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council. About the Speakers Marek Tuszewicki is a Deputy Director of the Institute of Jewish Studies, Jagiellonian University in Kraków. Much of his research and teaching focuses on the language and culture of Ashkenaz, particularly in their relation towards modernity. In 2014, he received a Ph.D. in History from the Jagiellonian University and a year later published the book: A Frog Under the Tongue: Jewish Folk Medicine in Eastern Europe (in Polish, later in English). He has also authored numerous articles devoted to Ashkenazi popular and medical culture, translations of Yiddish literature into Polish (including Mendele, Peretz, and Sutzkever) as well as his own book of Yiddish poetry Fun beyde zaytn shpigl. Rokhl Kafrissen is a journalist, teacher, playwright and 2022 winner of the prestigious Adrienne Cooper "Dreaming in Yiddish" prize. Since 2017, her "Rokhl’s Golden City” column has appeared monthly in Tablet magazine, covering the length and breadth of Yiddish culture. In October 2023, she taught her first class for the Yiddish Book Center, “Between Heaven and Earth: Yiddish Women's Folklore, Rituals, & Magic.” Since then, her lectures and classes on “everyday Ashkenazi magic” have become a favorite with students around the world. In September 2024, she will teach a new course for the Yiddish Book Center called “Sacred Time and Liminal Space: Ashkenazi Folk Magic at the Threshold.” </video> <video> Treasures from the YIVO Collections | A Zaporzhii Cigarette Box Description: Every Friday throughout 2025, YIVO will release a new video highlighting a book, object, or artifact from its collections. These short videos each feature a YIVO staff member discussing an item and explaining its historical significance. This video features YIVO Executive Director and CEO Jonathan Brent discussing a Zaporzhii cigarette box from the YIVO Archives. </video> <video> Treasures from the YIVO Collections | Chaim Grade's Typewriter Description: Every Friday throughout 2025, YIVO will release a new video highlighting a book, object, or artifact from its collections. These short videos each feature a YIVO staff member discussing an item and explaining its historical significance. This video features YIVO Senior Academic Advisor & Director of Exhibitions Eddy Portnoy discussing Chaim Grade's typewriter. </video> <video> Seth Vizel, YIVO-Bard Uriel Weinreich Summer Program Graduate Description: Seth talks about his experience in the YIVO-Bard Uriel Weinreich Summer Program in Yiddish Language, Literature, and Culture and re-learning Yiddish after leaving the Satmar Hasidic community. The YIVO-Bard Uriel Weinreich Summer Program in Yiddish Language, Literature, and Culture, established in 1968, is the oldest intensive Yiddish summer program in the world. YIVO's six-week intensive program will take place both in person and online this summer. The Summer Program offers peerless instruction in the Yiddish language and an in-depth exploration of the literature and culture of East European Jewry and its diaspora communities. The program features daily Yiddish language study from beginner to advanced levels, history and culture seminars, shmues (conversation) classes, a theater workshop, lectures by visiting scholars, a Yiddish song workshop, and more. The Weinreich Program treats Yiddish as a living language and emphasizes spoken Yiddish. Whether on Zoom or in person, we hope you will join us this summer! Apply for the 2025 Summer Program: https://summerprogram.yivo.org </video> <video> Burning Off the Page Description: This documentary about Russian-born American Yiddish poet and fiction writer Celia Dropkin (1887–1956) celebrates her unabashed writing about the female body and sexual liberation. Considered radical during her lifetime, Dropkin shocked readers around the world with sexually explicit depictions of lust. Her work defied gender norms and complicated traditional narratives and boundaries. Her poems invoked violent and erotic imagery as well as Christian iconography to describe passion, yearning, and death. Burning Off the Page includes powerful dramatic readings, archival footage, historic recordings, and dazzling animations to bring Dropkin’s pioneering poems to life. Along with her descendants, filmmaker Eli Gorn interviews stars of the Jewish artistic world including writers, Yiddish translators, and musicians. Join YIVO for a discussion with Gorn, professor Agnieszka Legutko and poet Edward Hirsch about Dropkin. </video>

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The YIVO Institute was founded in Berlin, Warsaw, and Vilnius (Vilna) in 1925 as the Yiddish Scientific Institute with the support of leading intellectuals and scholars. Its mission was to document, study and preserve Jewish life in all its forms. World War II forced YIVO to relocate from Vilnius to New York City, where it has continued its mission since 1940.

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